Arrive At My Door
by Kiefercarlos
Summary: ONE-SHOT: Maria isn't surprised when she finds a bloody and beaten Natasha on her doorstep.


**Here's another one from the collection. Hope you've been enjoying them. Got another 20 waiting to be uploaded.**

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Maria was sleeping, she'd just come off a 36 hour mission and she was looking forward to catching up on sleep and being off work for a couple of days. She was rudely woken by her phone ringing loudly next to her and before she's even managed to answer there's a knocking on her door and she knows her rest is going to get rudely ripped apart.

"What?" She answers the phone as she slips out of bed and shuffles through her apart. "Maria, it's Phil. Natasha's been in a bust up with some thugs downtown. I'm going to assume she's on her way to you." He says and Maria puts down the gun she'd picked up on her way to the door and sighs. She checks the peep hole just in case but rolls her eyes seeing Natasha leaning against the wall, bloody and bruised but in one piece.

"Yeah, she's just arrived at my door Phil. I'll let you know how she's doing when I'm finished with her." She says and hangs up quickly, dropping her phone on the table next to the door before unlocking it and pulling it open, scowling at the women on the other side.

"Hey." Natasha says with a grin, which probably would have worked if she didn't have a bullet wound from her side. "Get in here." Maria says and quickly pulls Natasha into her apartment and kicks the door shut. She leads the red head through to the bathroom and sits her on the edge of the tub. "Stay there." Maria orders and heads back out to the rest of the apartment and digs out her medical supply bag, which she keeps for these exact circumstances, and carries it back through to the bathroom before dumping it on the floor and digging out what she needs, glaring up at Natasha annoyed.

"You're a consistent pain in my ass you know that." Maria comments as she carefully inspects the wound and grimaces. "Sorry." Natasha groans as her still bleeding wound gets prodded. "Yeah, well I'd only do this for you. If Barton ended up at my doorstep bleeding, I'm turning him away and calling Phil." Maria comments as she gently helps Natasha out of the blood soaked t-shirt. Natasha just smiles at her and Maria can't help but smile back. There's never a lot of malice in Maria's words. She likes Natasha far too much to be truly hurtful.

"Right let's see what we're working with." Maria comments and Natasha leans back a little to give the other women room to work. Maria is silent and Natasha stays silent as Maria begins to work, trying to ignore all the prodding of her injuries. "Here." Maria says a couple of minutes later, pulling Natasha out of her thoughts and Natasha smirks when views the bottle of vodka being held up too her. She opens it up and takes swig, placing it gently on the floor, within reach, for both of them.

Natasha doesn't pain attention to how much time has passed and she avoids looking at Maria working. Every time there's a sharp pain she'll take a swig of vodka and even though it'll take more than a bottle of vodka to get her drunk it allows her to be more vulnerable, which is rare, apart of around Maria. She might have zoned out for a couple of minutes, because Maria is talking to her next time she opens her eyes.

"…..so I'll check in with Phil, but I'd prefer you to go and get checked by medical as soon as possible." Maria looks up and notices the distant look in Natasha's eyes and smile. "I'll tell you all this again in the morning. Come on. Let's get you to bed." Maria comments and gently helps Natasha to her feet, careful of the wound and walks her back to the bedroom.

Maria gets a suddenly sleepy Natasha into a change of clothes and helps her get into bed. Natasha refuses to let get go of her hold on Maria. "I've got to go clean and lock up. I'll be back in a couple of minutes." Maria whispers as she leans down and does something stupid, by kissing Natasha on the brow. A small smile slipping out of the red head and Maria lets herself smile as well as she goes off to clean up and lock up as promised.

When she returns she spends a couple of minutes standing in the doorway and watches Natasha sleep. It's a sight she doesn't get regularly and she would love to have it more often, not that she'd say that to the other women. When she climbs back into her bed, Natasha rolls over and curls up next to Maria and she can't help but hold her breath. This is all she ever needs and she'll accept it whenever she can. Both women know it's not something they can pursue, not with their jobs, so they take what they can get from each other, when they can get it.

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 **AN: Thanks for reading. Comments and advice much appreciated.  
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 **Looking for a beta, let me know if you're willing to help me out.**


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